Toy Soldiers
by blue weekends
Summary: [AU] [Pre-Butterfly Incident] Sent on her last mission before retirement, AR-10 is dispatched with her Echelon to intercept the delivery of a suitcase by mercenaries. Their leader the Colonel pursues as she heads into North Asia, and Sangvis Ferri follows with their eyes on the prize that may secure their future.
1. Chapter 1

1

* * *

The sky was blue, the girl was beautiful, and the man in the grass with three full metal jacket bullets lodged in his stomach was trying to remember where his breast pocket was.

Rifle in hand, the girl kicked the pistol aside, leaned down beside the man and reached into said pocket as his hand flopped against his chest. She pulled out a box of paper cylinders and raised an eyebrow. The man's eyes were alight as she raised it up for him to see. The girl took one out and as the man nodded, perched it between his lips. The man tried to reach into one of the pouches around his belt. The girl caught on and checked it first, finding a strange metal container. She turned it this way and that and shook it. The lid came off and upon the press of her thumb, the tiniest flame came into existence, a sliver so thin one had to squint to see it in the daylight. The man tried to raise his head and, faintly recalling a film she saw somewhere, the girl lit the end of the cylinder between his lips.

The man and the girl stayed like that for a while. The girl waved a hand over the man's face as she eventually noticed his eyes had stopped moving or blinking. She poked his face with a finger, and a burnt section of the cylinder fell into ashes.

The girl stood up and surveyed the roadside around her, all littered with bodies as birds from above came down to feed. As the girl walked down the road, she could already see them coming down to perch.

Three other girls waited for her beside one of the numerous jeeps halted by the road with shot tires, broken glass, and many, many holes, but this particular one had a swarthy figure seated on the ground and up against the door, with a beret on his head. "Glad you could finally join us, AR-10," one of the other girls spoke crisply. She was a tall blue-eyed blonde Slavic whereas AR-10 was a brown-eyed brunette of medium height. "Are you done performing rites for the departed?"

"Let her be, AK-74M," another girl piped in, cradling a UMP40 submachine gun. This one was tanned and petite with ashen hair framing a Germanic face. "She was just being curious."

"As it were, I believe we should be returning our attention to the matter at hand?" The last girl announced loudly in a French accent. For emphasis, she poked the end of her bullpup rifle into the knee of their captive, who flinched but did not resist for he had already lost all feeling beneath his waist.

AK-74M squatted down in front of the captive and beamed. "Pardon the interruption, captain," she murmured, reaching up to his shoulder and removing the combat knife strapped in a scabbard there. "As we were just discussing, please inform us on the whereabouts of your glorious colonel."

The captain's response was a hateful glare.

AK-74M raised an eyebrow. She jabbed the tip of the knife into his chest. The captain grunted and jerked away as the blade went in and out. His hands and arms came up as he tried to shield himself, but it was no good. As he fell upon his side and curled up into a ball, AK-74M continued to stab him as the other girls watched. Snick went the knife as she jabbed and jabbed and jabbed and jabbed and-

The captain's face exploded in a mess of bone and meat. AK-74M turned to stare up into the smoking muzzle of AR-10's rifle as the body between them slumped to the ground. "What do you think you are doing?"

For an answer, AR-10 turned away, slung her rifle over her shoulder and began the walk back up the road.

"That one," UMP40 said gently, not even perturbed, "is way overdue for an overhaul."

"Decommissioned, actually," the French girl with the bullpup rifle corrected. "I heard she is to be replaced with the AR-15 by the end of this year."

"Where did you hear that?"

"It was the rumor that went around back at HQ."

"The poor thing."

AK-74M shushed them and stood up, taking the moment to stretch with her hands held over her head. "Be that as it may, the poor thing is still with us for the duration of this operation." She kept her eye on AR-10 as she spoke, judging the distance between them. "Have any of you met an AR-15, or any other of the related models?" The other two girls shook their heads. "Well then, I have had the honor, and let me tell you, the whole lot of them ought to have been scrapped a long time ago, but the manufacturers keep receiving second chances. That's what favoritism does for you."

"Sure that's not your bias getting in the way there?" UMP40 queried.

"Not at all." AK-74M reckoned AR-10 was now about fifty metres ahead of them. "I'm speaking purely with regards to merit." The Slavic unslung her namesake and hefted it in both her hands. "Take this for example," she said, pretending not to notice UMP40 rolling her eyes. "A marvel of engineering." She imagined kneeling, lifting the weapon to eye level and putting a double-tap into the back of AR-10's cranium. "Every bit of it an improvement over its predecessor." She still could. The rifle's effective range was five hundred metres. At the pace AR-10 was making, AK-74M could wait for another ten minutes and still take her out. "Even a hundred years later, it is being used by armed forces all around the world."

"Now look here," the French girl said sharply. "What AR-10 did was uncalled for. But no friendly fire or you'll answer to me."

AK-74M looked at her and laid a hand upon her own chest. "You wound me, FAMAS. I would never even dream of doing that to a comrade."

FAMAS opened her mouth. "Don't look now," UMP40 said, cutting off what the other girl was about to say, "But I think the esteemed captain is still with us."

The German, the French and the Russian turned back to the body and noticed the faint but nevertheless visible rising and falling of its bloodied chest. "Organics are certainly a tenacious lot," AK-74M noted as she looked closer. "Still breathing. Round must have lodged itself in his cheek."

"Just put him out of his misery and be done with it," FAMAS ordered, already turning away.

AK-74M shook her head ruefully. "Captain, if you can still hear me, I have one last question before I send you on your merry way," she said as she imagined it was AR-10 beneath her instead. "If the gods made humans and guns made them equal, what does that make us?"


	2. Chapter 2

2

* * *

Even in pieces, EVO-3 still clutched her beloved sub-machine gun in her one remaining hand. Her other was missing and the arm was in tatters. Her eyes flickered to life as AR-10 and UMP40 came to a stop over her. "I must look a sorry sight," she croaked. Her voice chip still worked, although the dulcet inflections AR-10 had heart before were now absent as it sounded like it was on the fritz.

"Not to worry, EVO-3," UMP40 chirped cheerfully. "After a weekend with the horndogs back at engineering, I am sure you will be as good as new." She and AR-10 took EVO-3 between them – head, torso and arms – and lifted her up. Miraculously, the redhead's glasses were still intact if not a little lopsided.

AR-10 adjusted them for her. "Should I get her legs?" She asked UMP40. The German shook her head as EVO 3 closed her eyes in shame. "They're just over there."

"Leave them," UMP40 said. To EVO-3: "You'll get new ones," she added gently. "Much slimmer ones too. Until then, just rest up and think of those legs."

EVO-3's voice crackled. "Thank you. Both of you."

UMP40 beamed. "Hey, what are friends for? Isn't that right, AR-10?"

AR-10 nodded. "Right."

The three of them began their journey up the road in silence that was occasionally punctured by UMP40.

When they had made their first acquaintance with each other back at the base, AR-10 was summarily introduced to UMP40's sunny disposition when the Germanic girl proceeded to embrace her whole-heartedly. "Stiff one, aren't you?" She remarked as she pulled back and held AR-10 at arms' length. "Did I startle you? Sorry, I do this with everyone I meet for the first time. Hey, I don't suppose you've met MP5? Just ask her. She'll tell you I'm just incorruptible. Incorruptible? I meant incorrigible. I am very much corruptible. Gave one of my last commanders a nosebleed when I asked him to rub sunscreen on me. The sly dog. He even passed out."

"That sounds dangerous," AR-10 noted.

"Oh, he was up and going in an hour. Still, the other T-Dolls were trying to figure out if we could even give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But I digress. Have you met the rest of our team? Splendid lot, if I do say so myself. Got a Kalashnikov and a Scorpion. I think our leader's one of those French ladies. Just follow me. I think they're waiting for us at the helipad. We'll be briefed once we're in the air. Quickly now." UMP40 ran ahead as AR-10 followed her down the corridor. Along the way, they passed by other military personnel and the occasional T-Doll, and AR-10 watched curiously as UMP40 warmly addressed each one by name and received a response that was just as friendly.

"I don't think I've ever seen you around here before," UMP40 said. "New around here?"

"Yes. Just arrived a week ago."

"Where were you stationed before? Oh wait never mind that. Looks like we're here." The two of them stepped out of the corridor and into the light of day. They saw the helicopter with its rotor blades already chopping at the air, and just in front of it was the rest of the team.

Four hours later brought them to the present, out in the middle of nowhere on a godforsaken dirt road among the grassy plains. Could have been the steppes in Northern Asia. Could have been another world. In her memory bank, what parts of it the technicians had not touched, AR-10 could remember many landscapes. Many places and people, but they were all fragmented, snapshots without context.

"You know," EVO-3 mused. "I have been thinking."

"Go on," UMP40 said.

"But have you ever wondered, in light of the fact that we all have a copy of our AI uploaded on our employer's servers, if we are effectively immortal? I know it sounds a bit silly, but being nearly destroyed has made me wonder if it hasn't already happened before, and that I just don't know of it because my memory for it was wiped. On that note, does that mean we can never die, and if that is the case, what does dying feel like?

UMP40 glanced at AR-10, who shrugged. "To be perfectly honest with you," UMP40 said slowly, "I do not believe I have enough processing power to even come to terms with the question, let alone come up with an answer."

"Of course, of course. Considering my current state, nearly all my modules are currently offline so I am only running the bare necessities at this point, which is leaving me with a lot of bytes to consider this question."

"Have any of you been in the ocean?" AR-10 suddenly asked. UMP40 and EVO-3 both shook their head. "I have. I was on a mission with another Echelon to drive off pirates from a vessel, and during the skirmish, I fell into the water. It's kind of like when I dive into the net on my days off, but I couldn't move. My arms were heavy and I couldn't move them. My auditory system was flooded. I could do nothing but watch myself sink. " AR-10 paused. "I could do nothing but feel myself slowly fade away," she finished.

They all mulled over that in silence for a few seconds. "Do you think that's what death is like?" EVO-3 asked.

AR-10 shook her head. "I don't know. The other T-Dolls in my Echelon managed to get the vessel's crane to pull me up out of the water before I could find out. At least, that's what I remember. But not long before, I saw a man bleeding to death. He didn't ask me to save him. He just laid there, and I think he too, was sinking somewhere." She thought of the box that makes fire that she took from him. It laid in one of her ammo pouches. She promised herself that the next time she dived into the net, she will see if she could find out just what it was.

"Maybe that means we can die," EVO-3 mused. "Even more, if we can die, it means we can live."

* * *

Maintaining a vehicle was not in FAMAS's job description, but early off in her career she had learnt the value of listening instead of talking. And the more she listened, the more she heard, and the more she heard, the more she learnt. It was why she lasted as long as she did, where many of her kind had since fallen.

"If you don't take care of what belongs to you, you will find that it won't take care of you when you need it the most," an army engineer had explained to the T-Doll when he found her standing over him and his fellow soldiers while they were trying to do a repair job on a rundown Humvee. This had been during an interlude for a past mission. Another time. Another world. "Most days, when something breaks, people just go and buy a new one. Those people tend to treat each other the same way: girlfriends, colleagues, family and friends. That's no way to live. No, when a thing is broken, you got to show yourself you're better than that, and stick around to fix it. Like this baby here. She saw some people through some rough times, and now that she's a bit under the weather, we're returning the favour with a tune-up. But of course, I'm sure you dolls don't need to be that told, right?"

The engineer had then, perhaps due to the attention paid to him by a pretty face, gone on to show FAMAS a bit of the ropes for the rest of that morning and afternoon, and FAMAS saved to her memory modules the method for tightening and loosening the nuts with the right amount of torque, how to check the engine oil and the like. At the same time, she had been teased by the other soldiers for her clumsiness and inquisitiveness. All in all, a small price to pay for a crash course in Mechanic 101.

So there FAMAS was on her knees with her red overcoat tied around her waist, trying to change a tire with a socket wrench and jack on the one vehicle out of the entire convoy that had miraculously made it out of the firefight without its engines shot to hell. It was a Japanese pickup truck with one of its wheels punctured by stray rounds, but more or less intact. As she worked, FAMAS could still hear AK-74M walking about and into those who were still clinging to life. Every once in a while, there would be a loud crack of her rifle's report as she came across another poor soul trying to crawl off to safety.

FAMAS had been around, seen T-Dolls of all shapes and sizes, and run into quite a few characters along the way. The Russian was demonstrating the case in point. Compared to her sister AK-47, AK-74M had all the bad bits of her family and none of the good.

When FAMAS finally replaced the tire, she stowed away the tools into the back of the jeep, opened the door to the driver's seat and pulled out the deceased soldier who had been at the wheel. He fell out and onto the ground, and FAMAS took his place. She shut the door, inspected the mirrors, and when satisfied, took a moment to gaze out through the bullet-riddled windshield at the road ahead, before turning the keys in the ignition and hearing the jeep's engine roar huskily to her touch.

There were little traces of the people whose lives she had ended just an hour ago. As she took a few moments to look around, FAMAS saw the photo of a family on a porch duct-taped near the steering wheel. She saw the little mantras of good luck written in pen on the glass. She saw an ashtray on the dashboard half-filled with the remains of fine cigars.

As FAMAS closed her eyes and leaned her head back with her namesake in her lap, she heard the corpse riding shotgun sit up straight as the seat next to her noisily creaked. "Quite the bad company you keep, my sweet," his growl came into her ear over the engine's rumbling. "How's my favourite adjutant? Miss me?"

FAMAS's hands went for her rifle immediately, even as her eyes remained close. "Go away."

"Is that how one addresses her commander?" FAMAS heard the corpse tut-tut. "I thought I taught you better than that."

"You're not here, you're not real and you're no longer my commander."

"That's the million dollar question, isn't it? If I'm not real, why can you hear me, T-Doll?"

"A malfunction. A hiccup in my memory modules. The technicians will fix it, and you will be banished from me."

"We both know that's not it. The technicians have not found anything untoward in your last scheduled maintenance, nor the ones before them. You have not confided in them about me either. Why is that, adjutant?" FAMAS didn't answer. She heard the corpse chuckle and uncap a hip flask. Heard him take a long chug before sloshing the liquor this way and that. FAMAS stayed silent, her knuckles tight around the stock and trigger guard of her rifle. "Come on, no need to be like that. It's just you and me, just as has always been. Just as it always should be. Before you ruined us both."

"You ruined us both," FAMAS heard herself hiss. She opened her eyes and turned to look at him and wished she hadn't. He was in uniform, with medals adorning his chest and his face freshly clean-shaven and of cologne and aftershave, save for the goatee she had once said to befit him.

He was how she remembered him when he was always at his best, before she began to see more what he could be like at his worst, until the worst was all that was left of him. Before he presented himself to Helian, he used to ask her for her opinion, and even though she could see nothing out of place, FAMAS would still stop and take a moment to adjust his tie, if only to be just a little closer than protocol dictated.

He raised an eyebrow at her reaction and leaned closer as she leaned away while holding her rifle in her arms. "Did you not give me your oath, FAMAS?" he reminded her gently. "Did you not promise to stay by my side forever?" He took her chin and she swore, she swore, that he had to be real. She screwed her eyes shut as his face inched forward until it was all she could see. "Well, here I am, and I am not going anywhere."

When FAMAS opened her eyes, the corpse was where it was. Where it always was. Or so FAMAS tried to convince herself.

* * *

AK-74M cocked her head to the side as she followed the wounded soldier crawl on his belly through the grass, gloved hands clutching at the stalks as if they held his salvation. "You know," she mused aloud as she strolled alongside him. "I am not sadistic. I don't enjoy this. I take no pleasure in it. Pleasure is a matter of hormones: of dopamine and serotonin. I have wires and pumps for nerves and veins. I am cold-blooded. I have no blood. I have coolant. So why, as I am sure you are thinking, do I do this? She listened to the soldier sob. This far in, she was sure he was in shock from the pain. She decided he was probably sobbing because he did not want to die. "I'm just curious. That's all. Curiosity. You organics fascinate me. Here you are, still trying to live, when you know all too well that death is close, so close, but you insist to yourself that you can make it. You hope against hope. You delude yourself, and I can't understand why you and your kind do this?"

She had asked this question to her sisters several times in the past. "It's a flaw," AK-12 had explained. "A faulty sub-routine in Mother Nature's programming. It's only more evidence that they need us."

"It's resilience," AK-47 had suggested. "Baffling, but admirable."

Both answers did not satisfy AK-74M.

The soldier continued to crawl. AK-74M decided he was a poor conversationalist. She stopped, waited till the soldier had crawled ahead of her, before raising her rifle, aiming, and squeezing the trigger.

A puff of dirt spurted just next to the soldiers head. The soldier stiffened and began to crawl faster.

AK-74M nodded to herself and made the next shot miss as well. Then the one after that. Then the next one as well. She wanted to see how far the soldier could crawl before he died. She became disappointed when he expired only a couple of minutes later. With stomach wounds, she assumed that he would have lasted much longer if he had sat somewhere and waited for medical attention, not that anyone would have been coming to help.

AK-74M sighed and turned to look back up towards the carnage on the road. She could see the figure of FAMAS faintly in the distance. It seemed the French T-Doll was trying to change a tire. Closer, she could see AR-10 and UMP40 both searching for the fifth member of their group. AK-74M reckoned they wouldn't find much, and as it was, they would do just fine as they were without her. That T-Doll most certainly, at least in AK-74M's estimation, had the least to offer to the operation since the beginning.

After a few seconds, she found she was unable to take her eyes off AR-10. As if by instinct, the other T-Doll stopped and stared back in her direction, before turning to UMP40 who wildly gestured for her to come over. Guess that meant they had found their fifth member. She would be just baggage at this stage. Hardly combat effective after the damage she had sustained.

AK-74M paused as her sensors detected a transmission coming over their designated frequency for the operation. She answered it. **This is AK-74M of Echelon Kappa-4 reading you loud and clear.**

**AK-74M, this is Command. Please advise as to your current status of the operation.**

**Command, we have engaged a unit of Colonel Mikhailov's forces at Op. Point Bravo as per the mission briefing. Unit consisted of foot mobiles and lightly armoured vehicles and have been neutralised. We have not detained the Colonel himself. Requesting further instructions.**

A**K-74M, proceed to Op. Point Charlie. Do you require air transportation? Please clarify.**

FAMAS joined in the exchange. **Command, this is FAMAS. Negative, we have salvaged and secured transportation. We confirm we will be proceeding to Op. Point Charlie. Please be advised that we are currently one T-Doll down. EVO-3 is incapacitated and no longer combat effective.**

**Understood, FAMAS. That is unfortunate. Be advised we have sightings of military forces on route to your location. Most likely friends of the unit you have encountered. Approximately fifty foot mobiles with mechanized support. ETA ten minutes. Please continue to keep us abreast of developments as they occur. Command, out.**

Laughter over the channel from UMP40. **He said keep us abreast**, she chuckled over the channel.

**Very mature,** AK-74M replied.

**Just keeping things light.**

**We don't need light. We need to be focused.**

**Can it you two,** FAMAS snapped back. **You all heard Command. We don't want to be here when these guys' friends show up for blood. We're moving out. Now.**


	3. Chapter 3

3

* * *

A great beast of a man in a trench coat stood in the middle of the road with its burnt out vehicles and dying fires, taking a moment to breathe and digest the scene. All eyes on him, he slowly turned in a circle as he took the time to contemplate and deliberate, the smell of war in his nostrils.

Forty men dead. Forty good men whose names he could recite in alphabetical order, including a friend who he served with back when they still fought for their country and not for fortune.

Before the attackers left, they had stripped the dead of weaponry, ammunition and even clothing. Inventory was being taken. Some of the vehicles were still roadworthy. One was missing.

That wasn't the setback however. Men and equipment can be replaced. The loss of the good captain was regrettable, but not crippling.

It was that the attackers had made off with the Package.

Like a pet taking their cues from their master, the red-headed girl by the man's side took pains to mirror the many manners and idiosyncrasies of the figure she beheld as her great Father. In his shadow, she waited, watching the soldiers and other Dolls as his second pair of eyes while he surveyed the scene. Like him, she wore a coat, and it's tattered ends fluttered in the breeze as she reached up to adjust the bolt-action anti-material rifle slung over her shoulder, her slender frame showing no signs of buckling under its prodigious weight.

She owed everything to him. Even her name was his gift.

She watched him as he walked back to their jeep. On the bonnet sat a heavy duty laptop, the kind for mobile operations. She listened as he played the transmission they had intercepted earlier.

**Command, this is FAMAS. Negative, we have salvaged and secured transportation. We confirm we will be proceeding to Op. Point Charlie. Please be advised that we are currently one T-Doll down. EVO-3 is incapacitated and no longer combat effective.**

No mention of a Package. But it was gone. The man was sure of it.

He called her and she came over, unfurling a map over the bonnet. It was an old scrunched thing, dating back to just before the last war. Many places on the map did not exist. Others have since changed names, changed locations and even owners. Here and there, she could see that her master had made changes with a marker, updating it where he could with the information he had gained in his travels. She watched as he nodded to himself and stabbed a finger at a spot north of their current position.

"This where they are heading," the Colonel declared aloud. "They may be not even half an hour ahead of us. If we're fortunate we can catch up with them."

"Helicopters?" She suggested. They had two, each with a full payload of heat-seeking missiles. Far away, but reachable with a radio.

"No, Natasha. Where we're going, nothing flies. From here, we drive."

So all the Colonel's men and all the Colonel's T-Dolls headed right back into their vehicles. Doors were slammed. Voices were raised. Wheels spun in the dirt.

Natasha followed the Colonel into the jeep at the very front. He led the way. He always led the way. The one time he didn't was the one time his captain had urged him to take a backseat and rest up while he carried the Package. That one time he had been very lucky. If the Colonel had been more insistent, he'd been where the captain was. He was a great man but only a man.

But Natasha would have gone where the Colonel was. Maybe if things were different, none of this would have happened.

* * *

FAMAS did not have a driving license. She tried her best though.

Due to the animosity between AK-74M and AR-10, the former rode shotgun with FAMAS in the front, while the latter hung in the cargo area back with UMP40 and EVO-3.

For the first few minutes, FAMAS tried to learn how to switch between the gas and brake pedals. The two and a half T-Dolls in the back the bruises to show for it. Thankfully, the damn thing was an automatic.

They drove until the sea of green becomes a sea of white, their pick-up truck taking them out of spring and into winter. The stalks were yellow. The sky was pale. The air was thick with snowflakes. A storm was brewing.

The T-Dolls did not shiver, did not chatter their teeth and did not move despite the cold. Their internal power supply kept them at a constant internal of 50-60 degrees Celsius and they were able to adjust the settings of their thermoreceptors if need be.

They did not suffer the weather. They ignored it. It meant nothing to them.

Mostly.

AR-10 watched UMP40 dangle herself off the side of the truck by one hand before coming up with a fistful of snow. "What are you doing?" AR-10 asked curiously as the other T-Doll began to crunch it between her fingers so that they were packed together as tightly as possible.

"Science," UMP40 answered, "Or more specifically, anthropology." She hefted the instrument of her experiment in hand. "What do you think?" She asked, tossing it up and down.

"Looks good," EVO-3 mumbled.

UMP40 beamed. "Watch this," she said. She stood up and walked onto the top of the pickup truck's hood. AK-74M and FAMAS heard her combat boots thudding above them and looked up.

"What is she doing?" FAMAS murmured.

"I don't know." AK-74M leaned her head out the window. "UMP40, stop messing about and-" She yelped as she felt the projectile impact against her face dead centre. "Contact!" She shouted, hitting her head as she leaned back into the truck and scrabbled for her rifle. "I've been hit! Friendly fire!"

UMP40's laughter filled her ears as AK-74M leaned back out of the truck window with her weapon in both hands.

"Calm down," FAMAS said. "It's just snow."

AK-74M hesitated and then reached out to her face. Her hand came away with flecks of the ice crystals. She stared at it, and then stared at UMP40 who grinned at her and waved. "Now you've done it," AK-74M heard AR-10 say.

UMP40 snickered and went back to the end of the truck to get more snow. "Can you help me make one too?" EVO-3 whined aloud.

AK-74M growled something under her breath and withdrew back to her seat, stowing her rifle beneath her feet and wiping the rest of the snow off her face with the back of the hand. "No harm done," FAMAS said.

"Our Echelon lacks discipline. I believe a complaint is in order."

FAMAS glanced at her before returning her attention to the road. "I believe many complaints can also be made with regard to your conduct in battle. If I should have her written up for her infraction, I ought to do the same for you, or risk losing the support of the entire Echelon."

AK-74M looked at FAMAS. "Is that right?"

"Only fair."

AK-74M realised she had crossed her arms. She uncrossed them, lest they be taken as a sign of defensiveness. "What do you think will happen once this mission is over? Reckon they'll split us up and reassign us back to our old units?"

"Perhaps. Do you want to be reassigned?"

"Well, I'd like it if AR-10 and UMP40 were reassigned. EVO-3 too. I wouldn't mind if you and I stuck around."

FAMAS shook her head. "I'm flattered. What were you doing before this?"

"Sorties up in Siberia. Logistic missions that went sideways. You?"

"Tour in the Middle East. Peacekeeping. I didn't see much peace though."

"How come?"

"Organics. They wanted us to be there to keep the populace in line while they went about harvesting the land. My perusal of dictionaries confirm 'occupation' would be a more befitting term. Don't remember much beyond that. What was up there in Siberia?"

AK-74M shrugged. "Can't recall. Guess they wiped that from my memory. I only remember the combat data."

"Same. Guess that's the last thing they want us to forget."

"You said it."

"Don't be too hard on UMP40 and AR-10. They mean well. EVO-3 too. There was nothing that could be done when that grenade went off."

"She was clumsy."

"Unlucky."

"There is no such thing as luck."

"Perhaps. Academically, luck can be considered as hindsight; to review the past outcomes that had occurred out of statistical improbabilities so that one can be denoted as being intrinsically predisposed to favourable or unfavourable events. It is bias, nothing more, and we don't deal in bias."

AK-74M heard UMP40 cry out in alarm as she was pelted with a snowball. She grimaced, put her chin on one hand and looked out the window at the countryside. "What do you think our commander?" she asked, thinking back to the voice that spoke to them over the channel. "He sounds competent."

"Agreed," FAMAS said stiffly.

"Would like to put a face to that voice though."

"You just might get that wish after we return from this operation for a debriefing."

"Maybe. What was your last one like?"

"None of your business."

AK-74M blinked and shot a glance at FAMAS, who continued to keep her eyes on the winding road. "That bad?"

"It's old news. Doesn't mean a thing to me anymore."

They both heard UMP40's boots thudding above them again. AK-74M stuck her head out the window and quickly ducked back in as the other T-Doll hurled a second snowball.

FAMAS sighed in relief as AK-74M grabbed her weapon and shook it aloft outside the window, the conversation already forgotten.

Meanwhile, the Package sat between them and unspoken for. It was a little grey suitcase with one big secret.

FAMAS had already opened it, and she hadn't told the others what was inside.

Meanwhile, UMP40 and AR-10 were starting a new experiment. They tried to build a snowman.

They just finished the head before the blizzard hit.

* * *

Kalina came into the dimly lit control room just as the dots on the monitor on the wall identifying the members of Echelon Kappa-4 abruptly vanished off the screen. Weather data on an adjoining screen indicated rapidly plummeting temperatures and air pressure. All signs of a snowstorm.

She set down her tablet, watching the man slump back in his chair and throw off his headset. "Danny. It'll be a couple of hours until it clears up," she noted. "Why don't you take a nap? I'll wake you as soon as they call in again."

Danny waved her off and reached for the tablet. "What am I looking at?"

Kalina sighed as he rubbed his eyes, dark circles clear even in what little lighting the room had. "Some preliminary findings from Kappa-6's logistic operation, a repair report from Engineering on WA2000, and a priority call from Epsilon-3."

"Epsilon-3?" All of Danny's Echelons were designated as Kappa from one to six.

"Their Commander sent them to contact us. I believe you might know him. A Hiroaki Yamada."

Danny snorted and handed the tablet back to her. "Put them through."

Kalina tapped away. Danny's three monitors all flickered to display one single exquisite face with Slavic features and framed with blonde hair held back with a band. "Hello Commander, this is SV-98 reporting in," the speakers blared.

"Hello SV-98. I take it Hero wanted you to speak to me?"

"Yes. I will be brief. We're currently in pursuit of an enemy Doll sighted by another Echelon. By our calculations, it intends to enter into your area of jurisdiction."

Low resolution images – taken by a T-Doll's built in camera – appeared on Danny's first monitor. He and Kalina leaned in closer, making out a slender figure standing on top of an outcrop in the distance. Squinting, they could make out what seemed to be handguns floating around its head.

"From what we could tell," SV-98 continued, "the Doll seems to be a Sangvis Ferri model. Built for reconnaissance. Codenamed Scarecrow. It is hardly an alarming threat on its own, but Commander Yamada decided it was best that you be advised as soon as possible."

"To which I am grateful." Danny leaned back in his swivel seat and turned his head side to side, working out the cricks in his sore neck. "We can take it from here then. I'll have another Echelon proceed to intercept it. You may return to Hero for further orders."

"We don't have any available," Kalina murmured.

Danny's head snapped round. "Come again?"

"You might recall that Kappa-1 is currently off-line for maintenance, Kappa-2 is undergoing repairs at the moment, with WA2000 still in the middle of reconstruction, and Kappa-5 and 6 are out on logistic operations."

"That leaves Kappa-3," Danny countered. Then he blinked as he remembered. "Oh. Right. I forgotten. They're still doing that other thing," he said lamely.

"Yes," Kalina agreed, "Considering your condition, that's not a surprise. Do you know what time it is right now? Without looking at the computer."

Danny hesitated. "Midnight?"

"It's currently 2:52 AM."

Danny bit his lip and looked at his desk, covered as it was with noodle cups, plastic bottles, sticky notes and an ashtray filled to the brim with stubs of old cigarettes. That was not to mention the paperwork. "Well I'll be damned," he breathed.

"Yep. My thoughts exactly."

"If I may," SV-98 proposed as Danny opened his mouth to retort, "Commander Yamada foresaw this possibility, and instructed us that should you wish it, our Echelon is to render whatever aid possible to assist you in dealing with Scarecrow. Noting your current circumstances, would you like us to lend a hand?"

"Of course!" Kalina exclaimed. "A friend in need is a friend indeed!"

"In that case, we will continue our pursuit of Scarecrow and redouble our efforts to catch up with her. Does the Commander have any objections?"

"No," Danny said. "Please proceed as recommended."

"Gladly. SV-98, signing off." Her face disappeared from the monitors and returned to the homepage. The images of Scarecrow were left before Danny reached for the mouse and closed them.

Kalina turned and met Danny's bemused glare. "Oh come off it," she said sharply. "If you're too prideful to accept help, I will."

Danny shook his head and decided he was not going to beat his secretary in this fight. "I'm going back to my quarters," he said as he stood up stiffly. "Call me in an hour. I'll need to make some calls to make sure Kappa-4 make it through this mission."

"I'll walk you there," Kalina said, picking up her tablet and hurrying after him as they left the control room together. "Wouldn't do for you to fall on your head on the way."

"On that note, I think I should check with Engineering and see how Springfield's doing."

Kalina scowled and meaningfully pointed at her tablet as she struggled to keep up with his brisk pace. "You could always look at the report when you wake up. You need as much sleep as you can get as it is."

Danny shook his head. "Best to see her in person."

Kalina frowned. "Suit yourself."

"It's just a short visit on the way. Don't be cranky."

"I'm not cranky. I'm just concerned."

"Funny way of showing it."

The corridors winded throughout the base and were empty save for the pair. Surveillance cameras swivelled to watch their every move. The base's security personnel was a skeleton crew and most of the systems were automated by the base's own administrator AI. Sometimes days went by with Kalina never seeing another soul apart from Danny. That was not counting the base's half a dozen Echelons which were more often out of the base than in. Always off on patrol, sortie or scavenging, or all three at once. The world out there was a lot emptier than it used to be, and while order and stability was steadily being regained, lawlessness still held reign here where Kalina and Danny were stationed. They had their share of bandits, spanning from professional soldiers gone rogue with all their military hardware, to common civilians resorting to desperate measures if not base desires. Sometimes they were stragglers. Other times the group was large enough to be called a platoon. They have also run into many relics of World War III. AI tanks without a directive and shooting anything on sight. Spider mines killing anyone unlucky enough to trigger their sensors. One time they found an abandoned safe house packed to the brim with survivors who'd wandered out from one of the contaminated regions. Their radiation levels had all the T-Dolls Geiger counters crackling like fires, readings as high as those found in Chernobyl, and the pictures were nightmare fuel.

Kalina was often glad that Danny never asked her for her thoughts on some of the orders he gave. Because there have been quite a number of occasions where had made decisions tantamount to war crimes under the laws and conventions of the old world order.

Then there was the matter of the base itself, which was found as an abandoned R&D complex and subsequently repurposed by Grifon and Kruger. Danny was still sending

WA2000 was found sitting on the table in the operating room and following the instructions of the head of the engineering division to calibrate the settings on her new arm. Kalina watched Danny as he watched WA2000 through the one-way window into the room. "Alright, you've seen her," she said eventually. "Can we go now or do you want to say hi to her and have her bite your head off for caring?"

"You know what? I wasn't going to, but now that you mention it, I think I will."

Kalina's eye twitched as she followed her Commander into the operating room. She decided she will lace his coffee with laxatives. Maybe hide his sticky notes and take out all the springs in his pens.

"How is she, Ahab?"

"Doing splendidly," the head of the base's engineering division replied smoothly. "I've already sent everyone else away for tonight, but she wanted me to run some more tests." Ironically, everyone else numbered only up to another six other engineers. The base was unfortunately short-staffed. In the control room, there was only Kalina and Danny, despite the room being able to hold around a dozen people.

"She," WA2000 muttered aloud but without looking at either of them, "Is right here and can speak for herself."

"Of course," Danny agreed, turning to her. "You ready to get back into the fight?"

"Always, Daniel," she retorted, raising her eyes to meet his daringly, "Ahab here won't clear me, however."

"Really now? Why is that?"

WA2000 blinked and then looked down, crestfallen. "I believe I can answer that," Ahab piped in, nodding to the T-Doll's namesake which was also on the operating table beside. "We just came back from the shooting and exercise ranges. Her arm is working quite nicely, but I wouldn't say the rest of her body is quite in tune with it. I'd like to give her some more time to get used to it before I can say she is as good as new."

WA2000 sniffed. Kalina smirked. "I defer to Ahab's judgment on this," Danny said. "Until he agrees, you are to not set foot outside the base, WA2000. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal."

Kalina left with Danny, a new skip in her step. "I'm surprised," she said to his back. "I was under the impression you were going to let her have her way this time."

"Letting her have her way is exactly why she's there with Ahab now." Danny turned and shot her a look. "I suppose you're pleased to see me give her a dressing down like that?"

Kalina schooled her face to blankness. "Not at all, not at all. Just making an observation."

Danny snorted and turned back around. Kalina stuck her tongue out and then quickened her pace so she was beside him once more.

When they came to the door leading to his quarters, there was a long pause where Kalina waited for something to happen and Danny failed to figure out what it was. "You'll wake me up if there's any trouble, right?" Danny asked eventually.

Kalina nodded. "Of course. You'll be the first to know."

She waited till the door closed, before scowling and rubbing the bridge of her nose irritably.

To her, the Commander was an absolute dunce, and it didn't help that the base was hardly the idyllic place for such things. Want to grab a tin of canned food to eat? Want to have a romantic stroll out there in the desolate wasteland? Or how about a movie? We'll watch old CDs from half a century ago, where everyone involved was likely already dead.

Kalina's tablet gave a noisy rumble, piquing her out of her thoughts. She proceeded to walk away from the door, checking the notification and setting an alarm to remind her to check on Danny in an hour.

On the bright side, he never wrote her up when she pranked him. She already had something in mind for when she came back.

* * *

Despite the leftover uranium shells and dirty bombs, despite the airborne viruses leftover from germ warfare and despite the pesky meddling of humanity for many centuries via urbanization, life still seemed to find a way.

SV-98 took a moment to admire the deer and her foal grazing on the few patches of grass that somehow managed to poke out from the soil and above the snow, before her fellow T-Dolls alerted her over the communications channel of the nearby sighting of Scarecrow. Then she was off and running, the sound of her boots crunching through the snow sending the two mammals scampering off to the safety of the nearby trees and undergrowth as she passed them by.

Looks like they might have caught a lucky break. There was still light, and up here in the north, light was hard to come by with most days being spent in near if not absolute darkness. She took photos with her eyes as she ran. She intended to save them for Yamada. Apparently, the place where he came from was still experiencing the effects of nuclear winter, where light no longer shone over the former Empire of the Sun.

But out here, it seemed, there was still light, little as it was, and where there was light, there was still hope.

SV-98 spotted Scarecrow as she came atop of a hill. Down on the slope, the recon T-Doll was floating towards the distance up north, her pistols lazily orbiting around her head. SV-98 came to a running halt and fell upon her stomach. Her fire control software already making adjustments to her posture and breathing and taking into account the wind velocity and gravity, she noted that her target was almost six hundred metres away as she peered down the scope. Difficult, but not impossible.

The T-Doll took the shot. The thunderous crack of her rifle sent a flock of birds into flight somewhere far away. Pulling back the bolt, SV-98 was already standing up and running down the hill as Scarecrow jerked and fell to one knee. **SV-98 to Echelon. Move in. We got her now. **Already, she could see other figures coming from the east and south as she herself came from the west, her team already sprinting full-pelt through the thick layers of snow to cut off Scarecrow's avenue of escape.

It was all going so well, which was usually when things started to go wrong, as SV-98 heard her Commander warn her many times in the past. So she told her teammates to be careful.

Scarecrow was running, no longer floating. Her guns could be heard firing in tandem, muzzles flashing. SV-98's Echelon reported minor damage over the channel as they confirmed hits. She could see them occasionally staggering before regaining momentum.

As she came closer, SV-98 knelt, aimed and shot. Scarecrow lurched. SV-98 did it again, and again. Rinse and repeat. She focused less on accuracy and more on taking away Scarecrow's attention away from her teammates.

Then several of the Echelon's T-Dolls reported sightings of additional hostiles. **Scouts and Rippers. Around a dozen, but there could be more**, the transmission went round the Echelon.

SV-98 froze. **Direction?**

**From the north. Seems Scarecrow's trying to get to safety.**

SV-98 turned her rifle around. She saw them. Several Sangvis Ferri T-Dolls coming over the ridge up north, holding sub-machine guns in each hands, followed by the Scouts which were essentially recon drones with light armour and even lighter weaponry. Run-of-the-mill but distracting, and distractions were going to let Scarecrow get away. **Why weren't they detected earlier? **She lined a Ripper up in her sights and fired, watching it tumble forward as if all feeling had left its legs.

**Think they must have gone into autistic mode. All communication systems shut off and coordinated themselves by word of mouth.**

Another T-Doll came over the channel. **Well, Scarecrow is going to give us the slip if we don't hurry. Your orders, SV-98?**

SV-98 watched her next shot catch a Ripper in the stomach, taking out a chunk of the armour and sending it staggering to its knees and hands. **Maintain pursuit. There's not that many of them. We still have a chance. **She knelt and reloaded, trying to recalculate their odds, shuffling variables in and out. Scarecrow could command other units, so the reinforcements must be hers. They take out Scarecrow, the Rippers and Scouts are left leaderless and will be easier to mop up and dispatch at their leisure. So they have a setback, nothing more. Unless-

**SV-98. We're getting contacts from the west. More of the same, and there's **_**quite**_** a lot more. Twenty, no, I count thirty Rippers and Vespids. **

SV-98's calculations of success plummeted. **SV-98 to Echelon. Break off pursuit and pull back to safety. Do not engage. We don't know many more of them are out there. **

Her rifle fully loaded, she stood up.

**SV-98, more contacts from the east! They're fifty metres away from your position! **

Boots crunched through the snow behind SV-98. Something long and sharp hissed out of its sheath.

The T-Doll dove to the right as she heard the blade come down to hit the snow where she was just a moment ago.

She rolled and came up with her rifle to bring to bear. She felt something hard hit her shoulders and arms, all sensation in them going numb.

SV-98 blinked as she looked down to see the two halves of her rifle in her hands and her two hands at her feet in the snow. Broken wiring and circuitry dangled from the ends of her arms as coolant flowed free of the stumps.

The T-Doll looked all the way up and froze.

**SV-98 to Echelon. Handing over command to M1895. There's two of them. There's two of-**

The whole Echelon and everything in a kilometre's radius heard SV-98's stammer rose into a dying electronic scream before it was abruptly cut off.

Her fingers tearing their way through metal and polymer, Executioner found exactly what she was looking for, and yanked her hand out of SV-98's chest with the AI core dangling from the end of shredded wiring and seeped in synthetic fluids. **This is Ringleader to all units**, she broadcasted. **Wipe them out. All of them. **SV-98's body fell back into the snow.

With that, Scarecrow's partner turned her attention to the core. It was still active, the SV-98 as helpless as a newborn babe. "Now then," Executioner said as she dropped her sword and held the glowing cube up to her eyes with both hands, oblivious to the dozens of Sangvis Ferri units running past her to engage the rest of SV-98's Echelon. "What secrets are you hiding from me, little doll?"

* * *

AR-10 came online at nightfall as AK-74M pulled the tarpaulin away from her face. When the blizzard hit, AR-10 and company had proceeded to tie it down and cover themselves under the heavy-duty sheet to shelter them from the wind and snow. **Hope you enjoyed the nap, **the Russian T-Doll's voice echoed in AR-10's mind.** We've arrived.**

With that said, AK-74M turned and leaped off the truck. AR-10 sat up, UMP40 already hopping off with EVO-3 in tow. The pickup truck was parked on the side of the road and overlooking a cliff. Getting to her feet with her rifle in one hand, AR-10 stared over the edge and stiffened.

**This is FAMAS to Command. Echelon has arrived near Op. Point Charlie.**

**This is Kalina to Echelon. How's the view?**

"It's amazing," UMP40 breathed, her personality algorithms at a loss to comprehend.

They were told of it during the briefing. But it was one thing to hear of it and another thing entirely to see it with their own eyes.

**Echelon, **Kalina's cheerful voice came over the broadcast,** welcome to one of the last bastions of human civilisation.**

* * *

**Note:  
**Thank you all for the reviews and the views. My intention is to try to update every Saturday.

For the record, AR-10 and AK-74M are OCs. I didn't want to use the members of the Anti-Rain Team or the Kalashnikovs from Defiance. As the EN version is behind the other regions by at least a year, I am unfortunately not up to date on some of the latest events. Felt it was better working with two T-Dolls as blank slates to flesh out, and setting this story behind the Anti-Rain Team's creation and the main story to give me more freedom to go wild.

Of course, if anyone has ideas or feedback on the matter, they are welcome to share. You can also suggest T-Dolls you want to see, as I do plan to put in more.

See you next week b^.^d


	4. Chapter 4

4

* * *

It was a city, but not the cities of the Old World that they had seen before. Not the silent ruins reclaimed by nature, where the levels of radiation would give a man hair loss, stools, and nausea if he was lucky. Not the Chernobyls and Pripyats they had explored for scavenging runs, where everything was still and mournful. Here, they could see the night lights and hear the sounds and know that down there everything is moving as life ought to be.

AR-10 remembered the times she had gone from apartment to apartment in deserted suburbs searching for anything that might be of use to her human masters, whether it was spare parts, ammo or canned foodstuffs. How she'd look at the family photos on the wall and poke her head in the children's rooms, thinking of what had been here long before her time. A dog dead in the toilet because it couldn't refill its food and water bowls. Half-finished cereal breakfasts because the parents had to run out to the car with their children when they heard the sirens. Jars of savings for vacations in places AR-10 only had names and postcards to work with. Teenagers' diaries with the page open at their last entry and penned with adolescent hopes and dreams before the war came crashing into their life.

Ordinary people with ordinary problems, before everything went to hell and only the shadow of nations remained.

It was a far cry from what was currently in front of her. All that activity down there in the valley and AR-10 didn't know what to make of it, but her personality algorithms managed to narrow it down.

Restlessness. Perhaps here, she and the other T-Dolls could better understand what they were created to bring back.

FAMAS tried to start the truck again. It didn't work. She got out and looked under the hood. AR-10 could hear her muttering something about a frozen battery under her breath as she stood back and placed her hands on her hips. "I should have just left it running," the French T-Doll said aloud. "We will have to hoof it from here. AR-10, go get EVO-3. Until we find someone to fix her, we take turns carrying her."

"Sorry guys," EVO-3 said as AR-10 clambered onto the truck and came down with EVO-3 on her back.

"Nothing to apologize," UMP40 said. AK-74M was silent.

FAMAS looked at each of the members of her Echelon in turn. **Kalina, can you hear us?**

**Of course.**

**We're heading into the valley now to Op. Point Charlie. Mind if you could give us an idea of what we're supposed to be looking for once we're down there?**

**I'll need the Commander to fill you all in on this part. I'll go get him now. **AR-10 heard Kalina stifle a snicker over the channel.

**She sounds fun, **UMP40 piped in.

FAMAS glanced at AK-74M, who gingerly hefted the Package in one hand. **Let's get this over with. **

The Echelon proceeded to take out their rappelling gear and started setting up for their descent down the cliff and into the valley. For belaying partners, FAMAS went with AK-74M and AR-10 went with UMP40. They checked each other's knots and hitches and other preparations, and when satisfied, proceeded to pace themselves as they walked backward down the face of the cliff.

Halfway through their descent, Kalina came back on the channel. **Putting him through now. You're up Danny.**

**It's Commander. **The man sounded groggy. He must have just woken up. **Observe protocol. **His voice crackled from interference. **The snowstorm's died down a bit but it's still interfering with the transmission. Do you read me?**

**We read you, **FAMAS answered.

AR-10 judged a foothold wrong and slipped, spinning on her line. "You're alright, EVO-3?" AR-10 asked her friend after she managed to straighten herself. "Sorry about that.

"Not used to being like this."

"Be careful AR-10," AK-74M said from above them. "Don't need another member down."

"Noted."

"Do you want me to carry her?" UMP40 asked.

"She can handle it," FAMAS said. **Sorry about that, Commander. Go ahead.**

**Here is where things currently stand, **the Commander said. **Once you arrive on the outskirts of the city, you will be contacted by members of Echelon Kappa-3 who will lead you inside and to a man named Pierre Drummond, who you will hand the Package over to.**

**Anything we need to know about him? **AK-74M asked.

There was a pause from the Commander. **He is associated with Leihart General Manufacturing. A current if not diminished competitor in the market of T-Doll technology. They led the debut of your kind many years ago, but have since begun to drift to the wayside. It is crucial that the Package reaches Drummond. Anything more is on a need-to-know basis. **

**One last question**, AK-74M asked, coming to a stop against the cliff wall, her boots sending loose debris plummeting several hundred metres below. **The city. What's its name?**

**Difficult to say. It has many names. Its ethnic composition is multicultural to say the least and as you may already be aware, its existence is considered remarkable in the context of the ravages of the Old War which continued to be felt even to this day. The natives have taken to calling it Vtoroykitezh, the religious call it Shiloh and the like, and it is collectively known as Neigu by the refugees, which means Inside-Valley.**

**We'll go with the City, **FAMAS suggested. **Organic's fixation on faith and mystique both baffle me.**

**In that, Echelon 3 came to the same conclusion, **the Commander replied. **One last thing. The City is both an independent entity and a hotbed of dissension. There are several transnational corporations locked in a stalemate as they vie for total control, and only a token military force from the local government for the purposes of keeping the city under martial law. As such, you will have no authority in the city and little to no support beyond Echelon 3. Our client has made it clear that in the event that you are compromised or the Package is lost, they will disavow any involvement. Given the nature of the Package, it is crucial that none of the other players in the city know of its existence let alone its presence in their midst.**

**So it's in anarchy? **UMP40 asked.

**More of a flux state, **the Commander answered. **But from recent events, I believe that may no longer be the case anymore. **

**Why's that?**

**Because one of the corporations is starting to make its way to the front of the pack, and given its successes in the past, I imagine it will soon have the City under its complete control. Trust me when I say that they are the last people we want to find out about the Package, especially considering G&K's relationship with IOP. If it benefits Persica, they will most- **

The Commander's voice crackled with white noise once more. Then it was lost. In the sky above them, the Echelon could hear the wind picking up again.

**Storm's returning, **FAMAS said. **Hurry, we got to get off this cliff.**

AR-10 and the team quickened the pace. When they reached the ground, they spread themselves out and headed deeper into the valley with UMP40 taking point and AR-10 bringing up the rear guard as the shower of snowflakes intensified. They crept through the undergrowth in total darkness while they switched their optic settings to night vision. In the distance, they could occasionally hear the sound of vehicles, and they adjusted their route accordingly to steer clear of their owners.

In AR-10's memories, that which was scrubbed of the confidential and classified after the missions were completed, she recalled other firefights that had happened in the snow. Very difficult. Very messy. Little more than skirmishes with combatants fighting blindly and sometimes at point-blank range. Even T-Dolls with all their hardware had trouble distinguishing friend from foe, and it was easy for to get cut off from the rest of their squad.

The organics had it worse, of course. In that place from another time, AR-10 still remembered standing on top of a ridge and looking down at the many bodies in the ice, thinking that they must all be tired if they had all decided to make beds out of snow.

She was sure that place had been Antarctica.

**I got eyes on movement**, UMP40 announced an hour after they'd climbed down the cliff from AR-10's internal clock.** Dead ahead. **

**Numbers? **FAMAS queried.

**Just one. Not organic. Another T-Doll I think. Crouched beside the logs and thicket. I don't recognize the model. **

**I can, **AK-74M said. **I believe it's a PPSh-41. Commander, does Echelon 3 have one of those?**

**Yes, proceed to make contact.**

AR-10 heard AK-74M go silent as she made a data-link with the PPSh-41. **She's with us, **AK-74M said after a moment. **She's got the correct countersign. **The T-Doll stood up from her hiding place in the bush and upon spotting her, PPSh-41 too stood up and waved her gun in the air. She was dainty and was smaller than UMP40 who was the shortest member of AR-10's group.

"Good evening! I will be your tour guide tonight!" PPSh-41 declared as Echelon Kappa-4 jogged up to her. "Type 63 is around here somewhere. She will shadow our flank and make sure we don't get any surprises on our way into the city to meet with the boss." She noted EVO-3 strapped to AR-10's back and her eyes widened.

"We had some trouble on the way," FAMAS said by way of an understatement. AR-10 shrugged.

"Right." PPSh-41 shook her head, recovering. "I think we can get her fixed up once we reach the rest of my group. We'd set up a place for ourselves inside while we were waiting. Right this way."

The Echelon, led by PPSh-41, continued their way deeper into the valley and towards Neigu. Several times the T-Doll told them to stop and several times they halted and heard the sounds of other T-Dolls and security drones move past their position.

A couple of minutes passed before Type 63 joined their designated channel and introduced herself. **I'm situated about half a klick west of your position,** she advised, voice fading in and out of the haze of white noise they were all receiving.** I'd see you all in person, but there's another group heading in your direction. I'll lead them away. **

As if to demonstrate, AR-10 heard Type 63 snap off a shot into the air, before it was followed by sounds of running footsteps.

**Don't get into more trouble than you can chew, **PPSh-41 said.

**Of course. See you guys inside.**

Type 63's voice trailed off, lost in the interference of the weather which was reaching a peak. PPSh-41 led them deeper into the snowstorm. At this point, it was difficult for them to see more than a few dozen steps ahead. The T-Dolls found their feet wet as they trudging through frozen marshlands where soft mud laid beneath a layer of water. Then they went down an incline and were wading through the vegetation of a swamp.

**So what's in that suitcase you got to deliver? **PPSh-41 asked AK-74M, looking back briefly as the other T-Doll lifted the suitcase over her head to make sure it didn't touch the brown and brackish water. The short T-Doll seemed to somehow know the wetland by memory, jumping from dry patch to dry patch where there was solid footing as the other Echelon had to contend with the mud.

**That's classified**.

Whatever PPSh-41 was about to say, she never got to it. They heard a series of loud shrill wails from above them, and UMP40 yelped as gunfire rained on her position. "Drones," PPSh-41 said. "Follow me." She upped the pace, and AR-10 and company followed suit as dozens of the airborne units swooped in from above them, firing with their mounted guns. The Echelon replied in kind, and several of the drones fell from the sky with smoke trailing in their wake. As it was, with the snowstorm, the T-Dolls were firing all but blind.

As if things couldn't get any worse, AR-10 heard the sound of a heavy vehicle coming closer. Much bigger than a truck, with more wheels to add insult to injury. Perhaps an armoured personnel carrier at least, and a tank at worse. Then she heard the low repeated thump of a heavy machine gun raking the wetland from behind them, indicating the former.

Under heavy fire, a small sapling in front of AR-10 was ripped to shreds, and she felt FAMAS kick her feet from under as the other T-Doll dove down into the marsh as they heard more rounds roar over their heads.

AR-10's vision was obscured by dirty water. The marsh only went up to her thighs, and she felt EVO-3 touch the bottom as her harness came free and the other T-Doll drifted away from AR-10. With the drones shooting from above, and the heavy artillery at their rear, AR-10 was sure that she was to feel the solid punch of high-calibre rounds at any moment. She thrashed, trying to find EVO-3 but her hands grasping on nothing.

Then her head broke water as AR-10 felt someone pull her up. It was AK-74M, stooping as low as possible so as not to get hit by the machine gun. Her lips were moving.

She stiffened. A pair of drones flew over her head from behind.

AK-74M spun around, bringing her rifle to bear and sending one away with a wild burst from the hip. Her shoulder erupted in shards of metal and polymer. She fell back into the water, dropping the suitcase.

AR-10 lunged and caught it by the handle. Hefting her weapon in the other hand, she heard the thumping of the machine gun continue, but it sounded like they were shooting elsewhere. UMP40 and PPSh-41 blurred past her, each waving a hand indicating that they are to be followed as they cleared a way through the drones.

The communication channel was down. AR-10 realized they were being jammed. FAMAS was nowhere in sight.

She pulled AK-74M to her feet and they ran after the other pair of T-Dolls, the latter noticeably favouring her undamaged shoulder. They could still hear the wailing drones over their head, but their firing had also lessened somewhat.

Deeper into the wetland did the members of the Echelon trudge, half-slipping and tripping as they scrambled to solid snow and safety, minus FAMAS and EVO-3. AR-10 passed AK-74M, who was lagging behind. AR-10 turned and saw a humanoid figure half shrouded by the blizzard and looming over AK-74M.

The boom of a shotgun sent AK-74M tumbling down on all fours, her body aflame and her weapon slipping from her fingers. The ammunition was incendiary. AK-74M screamed.

The suitcase dropped into the water, AR-10's rifle rang out twice and then it clicked empty. The shotgun turned AR-10's way, and she skirted around the wielder as it boomed again and again. AR-10 reloaded as she sprinted and as AK-74M thrashed about in the bog. Buckshot flew past her face as AR-10 worked back the slide. Drones flew overhead.

With one in the chamber, AR-10 began to dispatch the drones first with double taps each, then she heard UMP-9 and PPSh-41 come to her aid as they each laid down suppressive fire, alternating so that the other could reload. The last one was sent spiraling to crash somewhere into the distance.

The shotgun boomed from much closer. AR-10 brought her rifle to bear as the figure came pelting, leaping into the air. AR-10 saw a face framed with white hair and grunted as a heavy boot crashed into her ribs, her shot going wide.

She flew back.

She realized was fighting another T-Doll. An M590.

She hit the water and mud with a splash. She immediately sat up and stiffened as she looked up the barrel of a shotgun and further up into M590's unblinking gaze.

It seemed as if it was the end.

But AK-74M was not out of the fight. M590 turned as a smoldering AK-74M sank the combat knife she'd kept from the road skirmish into M590's side, aiming for her core. The shotgun T-Doll swiped at the rifle counterpart, who ducked and threw a knee into the hilt of the knife, sending the blade deeper into M590's torso, before following up with an elbow into M590's chin, snapping her face sharply to the side with the force of the blow.

The shotgun T-Doll growled, reared her head back and slammed her forehead against AK-74M's. As AK-74M stumbled back, M590 fired at her point-blank once and then twice as AK-74M turned and fell face-first into the water, on fire again.

She would have fired a third time, but that was when UMP40 and PPSh-41 came to their companions' aid. M590 threw an arm over her face as they emptied their magazines, sparks flying from the T-Doll as stray rounds glanced off her body armour. She retreated back into the blizzard, leaping out of sight.

AR-10 sat up and scrabbled on all fours to AK-74M. Even with the mud and water, the other T-Doll still burned although the flames were already dying. UMP40 came by with the suitcase in tow and together they dragged AK-74M up. The Russian was motionless.

Behind them, the wail of more drones could be heard. There was no time to find FAMAS and EVO-3. They had to move on.

But now their chances of completing the mission had just taken a turn for the worse.

The remaining members of the Echelon were silent as PPSh-41 led them into the City, into civilization. She did so by taking them through a grate to descend down the sewers.

Their feet sloshing through sewer water, the Echelon followed PPSh-41 as she led them through the tunnels, paths branching off until it was difficult for even a T-Doll to compute the number of possible exits. Small animals could be heard skittering in the darkness. AR-10 was sure she saw things as large as a dog in the shadows. The Old World's wildlife had changed for the worse. But what hadn't?

As for the stench of the city's bowels, the less said the better. While all that was glamorous laid above on the surface, all that was refuse trickled its way down beneath where no one bothered to look.

AR-10 reckoned the organics would say that the description could be applied as an analogy for a lot of things, from the agendas of political parties to people in general.

Eventually, PPSh-41 showed them up a ladder that opened up in a rubbish-strewn alleyway via a manhole. There were cardboard boxes, old sofas, broken TVs and washing machines. Signs of the homeless could be found in makeshift dumpster fires but they were long gone. But with the snowflakes drifting down from the skies above, it seemed they had sought shelter elsewhere.

UMP40 still checked for anyone nearby, her feet crunching over broken glass and newspapers. With AK-74M over her shoulders, AR-10 lifted her up and set her down. The T-Doll was cold and it was not a good sign. It meant she was offline. She could come to, but who knew when, if ever?

PPSh-41 hopped from a garbage compartment onto a fire escape. AR-10 watched her go, looking up at the empty clothes' lines between the buildings around them.

For a moment, with the snow and the darkness and the waste around her, the T-Doll found herself feeling something she couldn't quite pin down. Perhaps a glitch in her programming? Perhaps a shiver of the soul? Perhaps a profound calculation, where her ones and zeroes aligned perfectly to determine the first step to solving the mystery her creators were still grasping to comprehend? Perhaps electronic godhood?

"This is bullshit," UMP40 mumbled.

AR-10 watched her kick a dumpster over, spilling trash onto the ground, before stomping a distance away while continuing to mutter to herself. "Calm down," AR-10 said. UMP40's personality algorithms were definitely malfunctioning. It mirrored the stages of grief and loss that plagued humans in for that was how the Dolls were designed, especially those with the programming for emotions as IOP made them. An imitation of biological hormones. "It's no use getting yourself worked up like that."

"I know that! Still, you can't tell me you're not upset too."

PPSh-41 whistled, drawing both of their attention. She stood at the top of the fire escape and waved at them to come up.

With AR-10 carrying AK-74M and UMP40 lugging the Package, they jumped from ledge to ledge to the fire escape, before following PPSh-41 in and away from the cold.

From door to corridor before standing behind another door, PPSh-41 doffed her fur hat and bowed with one leg behind the other. "Welcome home," she said shakily before turning the knob and beckoning them inside.

Home, as AR-10 found it, was a haven filled with a quiet despair. As she and UMP40 stepped inside, PPSh-41 closing the door behind them, AR-10 noticed it immediately. There was no rubbish, no grime and no mold, which was good, but whereas the homes she'd come across before bore traces of a life that had been halted with photos and the tidy mess that came with human inhabitation, the apartment room before her was empty, with blank walls, empty tables and ledges and only the bare essentials.

The best word to describe such accommodations was sterile. Functional yes, but sterile.

Nevertheless, T-Dolls were soldiers, not vacationers. It was four walls and a roof, and that was what counted in the end. AR-10 chalked up her disappointment to her own personality algorithms and promptly inhibited them. She set AK-74M down on the sofa as UMP40 set the Package on the dining table.

"I'm going to head off and find the others," PPSh-41 said nervously, still standing in the doorway. "In the meantime, make yourselves comfortable."

Then the door was slammed shut before AR-10 and UMP40 had time to come up with a response. Which left them staring at each other from across the living room in awkward silence.

"We need to go back," UMP40 said. "FAMAS and EVO-3 are still out there."

"We need to deliver the Package."

"Forget the Package," UMP40 retorted. "You deliver it. I'll find our teammates. Whatever's in the damn thing anyway?"

They both turned to look at the suitcase. AR-10 stiffened as UMP40 shot her a mischievous look. "Don't."

"Just a peek," UMP40 suggested.

"We don't have orders to look."

"We don't have orders _not _to look." UMP40 turned and undid the clasps.

AR-10's arm slid around her throat as she yanked UMP40 back. They struggled, their servos faintly whining as they fought for purchase, and UMP40 kicked out at the table to push herself and AR-10 so they toppled backward.

The table rocked from the kicked and the suitcase tumbled off.

From the floor, UMP40 and AR10 paused as the top flew open. They slowly turned their heads.

Curled up inside the suitcase was a little girl.


End file.
